Donny tonight

[Jon Moorhouse 0]

Strange start - we seemed to be playing 4-5-1 with Martin on the left and McNamee on the right - we changed this after 27 minutes to 4-4-2 and looked a bit better.

Their 1st goal was a decent hit from 30 yds or so - bit surprised Ruddy went for a shot in his top left corner with his right hand.

2nd goal was comedy defending but was at the far end so difficult to say who was at fault.

3rd goal was a deflection off the wall and was against run if play at that stage.

Ratings:

Ruddy 6 - would need to see first 2 goals again to be sure whether he was at fault

R Martin 7 - solid nough and got forward well for the goal

Ward - 7 solid and uncompromising

Barnett 6 - looks quick but distribution was poor and had to be quick to make up for errors

Drury 6 - fairly solid

Crofts 7 - worked hard but was a bit on his own in midfield at times

Smith 6 - seemed a bit lost in the 4-5-1 formation - improved as game went on

Hoolahan 6 - some tricky runs but knocked off ball too easily

McNamee 5 - maybe better as impact sub - swapped wings but overhit crosses (looping them in the air) too often

Martin 8 - worked hard (compared to previous away performances I have seen) all game and looked our best player and biggest threat (wasted on left wing)

Holt 5 - looks out of sorts at the moment. I have a bit of a man crush on Holt and thought him an unstoppable goal machine last year but looked slow and clumsy today. Not fully fit?

Subs

Hughes - not on long enough to make impact

Jackson - on long enough to make an impact but, a couple of runs apart, didn''t

Johnson - one run down right but on too late to make impact

 

Fans - good turnout and made a good noise until 3-1. Their fans were non-existant noise wise - difficult to believe they won by the noise they made.

[Phyxius 0]

Would disagree about ward. He was caught out a few times and looked generally shaky first half. Improved in the second though.

I thought Crofts was fantastic. Chased everybody down and worked bloody hard.

[Big Slob 0]

Drury in the first half was getting cut to shreds. Holt was very poor again, i''d play Martin and Jackson on saturday. Crofts or best player again in my opinion.

[Excited Canary 19]

Chrissy MOM, one good free kick, a superb curling effort in the First Half and he chased around a lot as well!

[Standard 0]

Drury first haf was eft exposed I thought Donny should have attacked him more, Crofts MOM for me

[kdncfc 0]

[quote user="Big Slob"]Drury in the first half was getting cut to shreds. Holt was very poor again, i''d play Martin and Jackson on saturday. Crofts or best player again in my opinion.[/quote]I personally don''t think Martin and Jackson will work, they didn''t look good against Watford and it wasn''t until Holt came on that we looked more like scoring. Holt is either struggling for fitness or he''s struggling against the better defenders in this league, I always felt that we needed to sign another big striker in the summer.

[7rew 0]

"Their 1st goal was a decent hit from 30 yds or so - bit surprised Ruddy went for a shot in his top left corner with his right hand."

I haven''t seen it yet, but you shouldn''t be. Good keepers should go for shots in the top left corner with their right arm (or both) when standing in a central position, as was the case here from the description of a shot into the top left corner from 30 yards (so the central position for Ruddy)

This is because during a dive to the left, the arms would be more accurately denoted the top arm (right) and bottom arm (left), so for the top left corner you go primarily with the top (right) arm.

[King Klose 0]

[quote user="7rew"]"Their 1st goal was a decent hit from 30 yds or so - bit surprised Ruddy went for a shot in his top left corner with his right hand." I haven''t seen it yet, but you shouldn''t be. Good keepers should go for shots in the top left corner with their right arm (or both) when standing in a central position, as was the case here from the description of a shot into the top left corner from 30 yards (so the central position for Ruddy) This is because during a dive to the left, the arms would be more accurately denoted the top arm (right) and bottom arm (left), so for the top left corner you go primarily with the top (right) arm.[/quote]

Unstoppable shot, you dont save those.

[marknursey 0]

I was at the game last night and was quite dissapointed with City''s performance. For there second goal I feel it was Barnett at fault as he seemed to kick it directly out of Ruddys hands (unless the keeper spilled it) as we were at the other end. Also feel Grant Holt under-performed. Seems that only crofts and martin had any fight in them what so ever. I agree that McNammee would be better as an impact player of the bench, but im sure he would disagree. Doncaster seemed to have far more options when on the ball than City did.

Quite fancy a 3-1 win at Preston on saturday though.

[Phyxius 0]

Doncaster played there way out of trouble brilliantly, and were always a threat on the counter.

We looked stagnant and void of ideas going forward. Only Holty would drift into the box when we were working the wings and the crosses were over hit.

[shefcanary 2,956]

Did we miss Surman?   I think so, Donny never let us have any time on the ball, the stats said we had more possession but we never really used it.  Surman I beleive would have been able to spot the pass to open them up a bit more.  A bigger loss than others may have felt.

[7rew 0]

"Unstoppable shot, you dont save those."

Indeed not,but you always make it look like you tried!

[Adam NCFC 0]

On another note, the ballboy was a c*nt. [:)]

[Divs crew! 0]

Was he sacked this morning? [:D] he certainly had his 15 mins of fame!